Waiting room reading material (that isn’t People) December 15, 2010: Danielle Ofri, editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review and a practicing internist at Bellevue Hospital describes a recent reading at the hospital and the transformative effects that providing a home for a literary magazine has had on it. Besides her current staff position, Ofri did her medical training at Bellevue and has witnessed the [...] by Poetry News

Just try not to freeze to death… December 15, 2010: Issue 14 of Printed Project, an Irish art magazine, is available in its entirety online. The issue is edited by poet and scholar Lytle Shaw, and features interviews with artists and writers concerning the idea of "the conceptual north pole." Basically, Shaw wants to interrogate the ways in which various conceptualisms are historicized and related [...] by Harriet Staff

Choose Your Own Tenure December 15, 2010: There are many unfortunate divisions in the world of arts and academia, but two of the most unfortunate are the division between the arts and sciences, and that between creative and academic writing. James Siddle and Maise Platts, two computer scientists, have gracefully stepped over the gap between "scholarly" work and creativity by writing an [...] by Harriet Staff

File Under: doesn’t actually function as satire December 15, 2010: Will McDonald, writing for the Royals Review, reported yesterday that Red Sox outfielder Carl Crawford was going to open an antiquarian bookstore in Boston. McDonald claimed that Crawford was well-known as a collector and scholar of antiquarian books, a passion fed by some formative reading experiences: Crawford's passion for New England [...] by Poetry News

HuffPo makes a list, checks it twice December 15, 2010: Were you wondering what the 17 "most important" books of 2010 are? Well, you're in luck, friendo! Anis Shivani has made himself a list: Fall 2010 has been a great season for poetry. There are important retrospectives of H. L. Hix's remarkable career and that of the leading Arab poet, Adonis; new work by exciting young African American poets [...] by Harriet Staff

City Lights Spotlight poets December 15, 2010: As Poetry Foundation permissions coordinator Michael Slosek pointed out in his 2010 best of the year pick, City Lights has done great things with its Spotlight series with new titles by Andrew Joron, Norma Cole, Anselm Berrigan, and "Craft Work" blogger Cedar Sigo. Michael and archive editor James Sitar have added a few poems by these authors to [...] by Poetry Foundation

How to survive 22 hours in a bathtub December 15, 2010: A 99-year old Salt Lake City woman lay stranded in her bathtub for 22 hours after falling and injuring herself. She says she survived by reciting poetry: Vernon believes that reciting poetry and reminiscing about previous world travels was responsible for her survival. "If I hadn't known lots of beautiful poetry, I couldn't have made it," [...] by Harriet Staff

Robert Mugabe in verse and disappointment December 14, 2010: Chaka Sichangi invited three poets to his Philharmonic Poet blog to collaborate on portraits of Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe. The results, in four hugely different styles, portray not the political and economic conflicts he and his government have become increasingly known for, but rather the promise and the disappointment that Mugabe has [...] by Poetry News

File under: Leaky poetry December 14, 2010: Last week on Harriet we saw the similarities between the strategies of WikiLeaks and that of the Language Poets. Now, over at Detainees Linh Dinh highlights WikiLeak's public face Julian Assange's forays into prose poetry: Do electric sheep dream of f16's? In the morning, the call to prayer rises from mosque to citadel, the sun lights the [...] by Poetry News

The annual Rain Taxi benefit auction is NOW December 14, 2010: Every year the excellent journal of criticism Rain Taxi holds a benefit auction on eBay, selling off autographed rare editions, T-shirts, and weirdo handcrafted items to help keep the taxi going. This year, literary fetishists (and, you know, normal people) can bid on signed books from Paul Auster, Brenda Hillman, Susan Howe, Gordon Lish, Eileen [...] by Harriet Staff